What is Dash? (DASH)

Bitcoin’s along with its blockchain technology has taken the tech world by storm with its key value proposition of making money decentralized. However, the technology is still in its infancy and as Bitcoin is just the first application of digital currency, it is certainly going to have some flaws, as with most products Bitcoin can't please all customers all of the time and that's why we have a choice.

These drawbacks of Bitcoin has given birth to a new breed of cryptocurrencies called Anonymous Cryptocurrencies and Dash is one of the contenders in this new breed. Dash (formerly known as Darkcoin and XCoin) like Bitcoin is an open source peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and is based on the Bitcoin software as well as taking inspiration from Litecoin.

Which is build on top of Bitcoin's feature set, it currently offers instant transactions (InstantSend), private transactions (PrivateSend) and operates a self-governing and self-funding model that enables the Dash network to pay individuals and businesses to perform work that adds value to the network. Dash's decentralized governance and budgeting system makes it a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

What is Dash (DASH)?

Dash was originally released as XCoin (XCO) on January 18, 2014, and has gone on to be rebranded a few times in its short lifespan. On February 28, the name was changed to "Darkcoin." Then on March 25, 2015, Darkcoin was rebranded as "Dash."Dash is a portmanteau of "Digital Cash." Dash was created by lead developer Evan Duffield and attributed its development to a bug created when the Litecoin code was forked to create Dash, "which incorrectly converted the difficulty, then tried using a corrupt value to calculate the subsidy".

While the Dash system itself is decentralised and relies on miners to approve and its transactions to the blockchain there is still a company behind the development of the ecosystem.

The Dash Core Team, responsible for developing the currency, has since grown to 30 full-time employees, 20 part-time employees, and dozens of unpaid volunteers. All Core Team employees are paid from Dash's budget system and therefore are not reliant on donations or sponsorships that can lead to conflicts of interest.

Why you should pay attention to Dash?

While other cryptocurrency projects like Ethereum or Stratis are more of a development platform and focus on additional features like Smart contracts. Dash focuses itself as peer-to-peer decentralized electronic cash. It intends to be as liquid as real cash which we use in our respective countries and their fiat currencies. Dash is built upon Bitcoin’s core code with the addition of new features (such as privacy and quick transactions). Like BTC, Dash is open-source and has its own blockchain, wallet infrastructure, and community.

But unlike BTC, its transaction fee is negligible. Dash maybe similar to BTC in many ways it offers users really unique features like :

Private Send

Dash allows you to send your funds privately by mixing it in between several other transactions, thus making it hard to identify any specific transaction. It uses a coin mixing service based on CoinJoin. This is an optional privacy feature which the user may want to use. But there is a limited cap of 1000 Dash for which you can send using this feature.

Instant Send

This service allows you to send your Dash transactions instantly (within 1.5 seconds). But Masternodes charges higher fees for processing such transactions. InstantSend also solves the double-spending problem.

Note: InstantX was rebranded to InstantSend in 2016.

Masternodes

Unlike Bitcoin, where all nodes are created as equal, Dash has special privilege nodes called Masternodes. Anyone can form Masternodes by holding 1000 Dash as collateral. These special nodes perform PrivateSend and InstantSend functions and earn up to a 45% block reward.

X11 Algorithm

DASH mining uses a different algorithm called X11.

What is Dash being used for?

1. Foreign exchange

Dash offers users a faster and cheaper way to exchange fiat currencies across the world. You can easily add US dollars into Dash send it over to a friend, family member or vendor in another country which they can then exchange for a local currency of their choice, eg. Euros without having to deal with any forex exchange and only paying one mining/transaction fee.

2. Products and services

Many merchants providing their products and services online are already accepting bitcoin and they often also take DASH, if not you can use services like shapeshift to convert your Doge into BTC or ETH which are more widely accepted.

Can you mine Dash?

Dash is a decentralised system that uses blockchain technology which means it can be mined by the individual or by those in mining pools just like BTC however it has a difference on how it can be mined. DASH developers purposefully used the X11 algorithm specifically to make it difficult for companies to manufacture hardware that solves it. X11 consists of 11 different cryptographic algorithms, so it’s more suited for GPU mining rather than CPU, although it is possible to mine with a CPU, using GPUs are more powerful and yield higher rewards.

The X11 algorithm levels the mining playing field making it available to the people and decentralized as apposed Bitcoin mining has become increasingly centralized with users creating massive mining farms in order to compete with one another.

Dash has a variable block reward which decreases at a 7.1 % rate each year. The average block mining time is 2.5 minutes on the Dash blockchain, which makes it four times faster than Bitcoin. According to CoinMarketCap, in June 2017 the daily trade volume of Dash was approximately $100 million per day and the market capitalization of Dash exceeded $4.8 billion. Dash has become the most active altcoin community on BitcoinTalk reaching more than 6400 pages, 133k replies, 7.9M reads.

Can you earn Dash?

Faucets

Dash faucets are a reward system, in the form of a website or app, that dispenses rewards in the form of a Dash for visitors to claim in exchange for completing tasks like a captcha or task as described by the website. You can try out a dash faucet here

PTC Websites

Pay to click (PTC) websites offer to pay users in Dash for clicking on and viewing ads on their platform

Gambling

When money is involved gambling is never too far behind and online betting and casino microgames using Dash are starting to pop up all over the net, all it takes is a simple internet search.

Mining

As mentioned earlier Dash can be mined, this can be done by setting up a pc with the software or a fully customised rig and start mining solo or in pools.

Should you invest in Dash?

Dash is designed to have a very limited total supply of only 18 million coins available making scarcity one of its key value drivers. At present, the circulating supply of Dash is 7.4 million, and it will reach 18 million in the year 2300 at its current mining rate. Having a very limited supply as well as MasterNodes holding supply as collateral in order to operate further limiting the supply of coins makes scarcity a real value driver for the currency.

Along with its very low transaction costs as opposed to BTC, Dash offers an affordable option and makes it attractive for microtransaction platforms. Also being focused solely on being a currency and doing it well gives it a leg up on the competition when it comes to being a preferred payment method for eCommerce, international commerce and as a payment replacement for traditional banking.

Dash has seen tremendous growth in the last year and there is no reason why it should not continue on its upward trend in 2018.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice and is for educational purposes only. As of the time posting the writers may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency as all investments contain risk.